Despite today's focus on the maelstrom of fresh Apple releases and updates, it's business as usual for the rest of the world. Case in point: While we were all busy ogling Cupertino's newest hotness, word broke that gaming giant Electronic Arts has acquired Angry Birds maker Chillingo for a cool $20 million.

The folks at Valve just dropped the mother of all gaming news bombs: One of the most beloved and most played games in the world, Defense of the Ancients--widely known as DOTA--is getting the sequel treatment. are now officially old news. Get ready for DOTA 2!

My oh my, but this is a happy day for LEGO fans--especially those who had the foresight to pre-order the LEGO Universe MMO game. In a press release from on high, the LEGO Group announced that the game's servers are now live, allowing access to individuals who opted to pre-purchase the game two weeks earlier than LEGO Universe's slated October 26th launch date. For you privileged few who have already purchased the game, today marks a new a new chapter in your life: You'll no longer need to alienate your family and friends in order to bring your creations to life with small plastic blocks. Starting today, you also have the option of alienating them through the use of a computer. Technology makes everything better!

Civilization isn't so much a game franchise as it is a force of nature. Throughout the game's various iterations and updates, the the turn-based strategy phenomenon has maintained a reputation for instantly enthralling players, causing millions of hours of sleepless nights, poor time management, the alienation of loved ones and some pretty serious cases of numb-bum.

It's not like any of our readers need an extra edge in order to utterly destroy the Mac|Life staff on Frag The Editor Fridays. You'd have to wander far and wide to find an easier kill than playing against Robbie, Flo and the rest of the gang. However, for some people, simply winning just isn't enough: For the blood-thirsty elite that understand no quarter can be given, even in virtual warfare, Razer's latest offering--the Ironclad mouse pad--might be the piece of hardware you need to round out your computer gaming arsenal.

EA and Hothead released and announcement regarding their game DeathSpank. According to the announcement, PC and Mac users will be able to join in on the fun starting on October 26. Pre-ordering for this game starts today on Steam, with a 10% discount on all pre-orders.

Sony's free play environment game called Free Realms will be making its way over to the Mac in the coming months. Sony today announced their plans for porting the game and its 14-million player strong community over to the Mac "this fall." This news comes at a time when PS3 users are still unable to play the game on their consoles.

The Fruit Ninja 1.4 update was released to the App Store today, adding multiplayer support for Game Center. Battle your friends and enemies in an all new network multiplayer mode that throws blue fruits and red fruits at your screen. Slice away at your blue fruit while avoiding your opponents red fruit. The regular rules of the game still apply in multiplayer mode, such as bonuses and combo fruits.

As we previously mentioned, the Unreal Engine that powers many console-quality games was going to make the move into the hands of iPhone and iPad developers, allowing game developers to create more graphically-rich games for iOS devices. But as Know Your Mobile reports today, the UDK (Unreal Development Kit) may make it's way into the hands of iOS developers very soon.